"He got all the things he was entitled to in the due process of law, everything. Lawyers, family, visits, court, supervision of the court, everything".
ISRAEL has defended its actions in the case of the Australian citizen who died in its custody, rejecting allegations that he was tortured and committing to releasing a judge's report into his death in the coming days.
After partially lifting the veil of secrecy over the arrest, secret trial and death of dual Australian-Israeli national Ben Zygier following an international outcry over case, Israel was keen to present its treatment of the 34-year-old as exemplary.
But as is the norm in Israel's criminal justice system, Mr Zygier did not ever have the support of his legal team when he was being questioned over what are believed to be charges of treason, throwing into doubt claims that he was fairly treated.
The State Attorney's office, located in the country's Ministry of Justice, has been charged with conducting the investigation into whether negligence on the part of Israel's prison authorities contributed to Mr Zygier's death.
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That means the organisation responsible for deciding to arrest and indict the Australian and who oversaw his secret trial and the conditions of his incarceration will decide whether his suicide in custody ? purportedly under the 24-hour surveillance of prison service guards ? was a result of negligence.
A senior Justice Ministry official ? speaking on the condition that he was not identified ? told Fairfax Media that there was no conflict of interest in the investigation, saying if negligence led to Mr Zygier's death, people would be held responsible.
"The Ministry of Justice was not guarding him, this is the office of internal security ? these are two different offices," he said.
"He got all the things he was entitled to in the due process of law, everything. Lawyers, family, visits, court, supervision of the court, everything."
The official denied reports in the Israeli media that the government had agreed to pay several million shekels in compensation to Mr Zygier's family.
"I think the answer is no [no compensation has been paid] ? probably the family prefers to wait for the termination of the criminal procedure," he said.
"Part of this is already done by the decision of the president of the magistrate's court, and the second part will be finished when the State Attorney's office makes its decision and if there will be a trial ? a criminal trial ? against the guardians or anyone else, they will wait for this too, I think."
Mr Zygier was found dead on December 15, 2010, in his isolated maximum security cell in Ayalon Prison, 10 months after being arrested by Israel's internal security service, Shin Bet.
"Somehow he succeeded to kill himself and maybe that is part of the negligence," the Justice Ministry official said. "His cell was inspected quite thoroughly, I do not know what happened in the minutes that he killed himself, maybe a guardian didn't pay enough attention."
District court president Daphna Blatman Kedrai's inquiry into his death was finalised six weeks ago. She found the prisoner had died from suicide and referred the case back to the State's Attorney's office for further investigation.
Israel has not revealed what crime Mr Zygier is accused of committing, however Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon told Channel 2 on Saturday night that he was jailed for offences that threatened the security of the State of Israel.
"We are a special country in terms of our security situation, and because of security needs and sometimes even to save lives we must take extreme measures," Mr Ya'alon said. "We should assume that if he got to this point, there was information that necessitated it."
It was revealed this week that Mr Zygier was under investigation from Australia's security service ASIO, over suspicions he was using multiple Australian passports to spy for Israel in countries such as Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
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